Said It Here

Can you report a coworker for bringing alcohol-infused food to work?

Bringing alcohol-infused desserts to work violates handbook policy and creates a serious issue for employees in sober living. Colleagues fear supervisors will dismiss the complaint as an overreaction, while union leadership may treat the situation as an outrage, leaving staff unsure how to handle formal disciplinary action.

What people tried

Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.

  1. 1
    telling the coworker to talk to the union rep
  2. 2
    advising the coworker to keep quiet and accept the write-up
  3. 3
    staying out of the situation entirely
  4. 4
    Putting the dessert away immediately
  5. 5
    Assuming best intentions and asking employees to clearly label food in the future
  6. 6
    Treating the situation casually without issuing a formal write-up

In their words

Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.

r/humanresources1 person · September 2026

“Employee brought a VERY MUCH alcohol infused dessert to the workplace and by the time I took a bite, it was 3/4 gone!”source ↗

“Anyways, that conversation should be a good time 😅 but genuinely, I feel upset about this as we have several employees that have been vocal about their sober living due to several different reasons, but HELLO it’s a clear violation of our handbook policy.”source ↗

“What is even more upsetting is that I do feel like this warrants an immediate written write up, but I feel like supervisors might feel like I’m overreacting.”source ↗

Quadris_De_Ouro · r/humanresources · 49 upvotes

“I don’t bake so I wouldn’t know how that would work, which I can look into, but what I can say is that it was overwhelmingly strong even with the first bite, and my fear is, will this open the door for other alcohol infused food/desserts? Am I overreacting?”source ↗

Quadris_De_Ouro · r/humanresources
r/Teachers1 person · September 2026

“Here’s the issue, I told him that’s insane and he should talk to the union rep to get the write up off his record but come to find out the union rep was the one that was most upset about this question.”source ↗

TheNewNumber1 · r/Teachers

Where this came up

r/Teachersr/humanresourceshuman resources

People with this problem also raised